Top Australian writers' festival called off after Palestinian author axed
Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled after more than 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned, warning that the decision to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian writer in the wake of the Bondi attack threatened freedom of expression.
One of Australia's top writers' festivals was cancelled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event, and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the director of the festival, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers' Week in February, following a decision by the festival's board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event "so soon after Bondi", and claimed the decision was made "out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event".
The novelist and academic Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was "a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship".
The festival board on Tuesday apologised to Abdel-Fattah for "how the decision was represented".
"Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies," the board said in a statement.
The event will not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
"This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history," it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who had said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board's decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah "weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn't".
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month's shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
The incident prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.